Strings
by amberpire
Summary: Claude could think of no other soul that looked so delicious. ;Claude/Alois; AU.


**A/N:** _This is very much AU. Ciel and Sebastian do not exist in this universe._

_Also, I do not own Kuroshitsuji._

* * *

Alois Trancy is a lot of things. He is probably quite literally insane, bordering on psychopathic, and has enough fucked up history to last him several lifetimes.

Alois Trancy is also not a lot of things. One of which is Alois Trancy. He is also not stupid, contrary to what others think of him. Just because he is a complete lunatic and sometimes very delusional does not mean he is not intelligent. Even before he had adopted the Trancy name, he had been smart. Books used to be all that he had, and he would spend many nights whispering stories to Luca in the dark, until the sun melted the black-bruised sky. He is a well of useless information, bits and pieces of fact he had picked up over the years of eaves-dropping and looting with his soft-cheeked younger brother at his side. At some point, he remembered earning to be a teacher someday.

The blonde scoffs. He shoves a wineglass off of the table. It shatters on the floor in a brilliant shower, the shards blinking up from the ruby floor like diamonds. It bleeds water.

A figure in black moves to his side so swiftly he nearly misses it just by blinking. Alois who is not Alois peers down at the man, bent at the knee, a dust pan and a small broom already claiming his gloved fingers. The glass is brushed away. The master of the house leans back in his chair, fingers toying with the buttons on his waistcoat before his chin tilts upward, blue eyes following the lines of his butler as the demon straightens at his side.

"Claude?"

His butler is silent, paused in motion with the dustpan in one hand and the small broom in the other. Even though the demon does not look at him, Alois knows that spiders have eight eyes and all but two are trained on him. A smile crawls onto his lips as he blocks his elbows on the tabletop, his legs hooking beneath the chair and swinging beneath him.

"Did you know that in England, for a time, anyone who unsuccessfully attempted suicide faced the death penalty?"

Claude's eyes move, the orbs of gold sliding to the edges of his eyes without turning his head. The two lock their gazes together - Alois smiling smugly as he crosses his long legs, his butler's face lacking the strings it takes to make any expression other than blank stone. But Alois is full of strings that twist and turn and knot and there are even bows tied at the end of some of them. Some could say they were beautiful, while others would probably view it as a mess of things too taut and too tensed and ready to snap. They are tangled around every bone.

His butler walks wordlessly out of the room and Alois Trancy digs words into the table.

/

It became darker every day.

Claude could see it pulsing around the edges of his young Master's form like heat waves from an unforgiving summer sun. It rippled and lashed out wildly, uncontrolled, all sense of what normal order should be lost to a past of loss and carnage.

His Master's soul was unlike any he had ever seen before. The demon had been around nearly as long as humankind. He had seen men develop and grow and he had fed off of them, spun them into his webs and sucked them dry, until only the bones were left. He had had every kind of soul - the dark, broken ones; the soft, untainted yellow of a newborn; the diamonds wedged into an angel's chest and the hundreds upon hundreds of lost and defenseless. That was before contracts, before deals and seals and being a butler. There was a time when humans were free game, when souls came cheaply and did not require years of servitude.

Claude has had many Masters. They have all blurred by in blinks. Their souls were ordinary as most of them are, as they should be, but Alois Trancy's whipped and whirled around him like a constant hurricane. The boy was filled with storms, with winds and destruction and something stronger, something thick. It pumped through him mostly at night, when Claude could feel the emotions of his Master pushing through the seal. His mouth would burn with it, something heavy bursting through Alois' dreams. It tasted like blood. It did not worry Claude, or trouble him, because so few things did, but it was curious. If there was anything he could admit about Alois Trancy, it was that the boy was interesting.

Every morning, the waves ripping around his Master became a little bit darker. He was tinged dark purple and black.

His soul was bruised.

Claude could think of no other soul that looked so delicious.

/

Jim. Jim. Jim.

Alois writes it on his walls. Over and over, filling one side completely before he moves to the next one, climbing on top of his desk to start in the farthest reaches of his bedroom. Jim. J-I-M. He writes it big and small, neat and messy, he spreads out the letters and then writes it seventy times with no spaces, letters on top of letters, over and over and over and - until two entire walls are almost filled with black ink and it smells damp and thick and Alois' hand is cramping and his face is wet but he keeps writing, scratching over the paint, digging JimJimJIM into the mansion he stole.

For several long moments, Alois does not even register that a hand has closed over his own. He blinks, struggling to move his fingers, but they are clasped under a white glove. It pulls his hand from the wall, the black pen clattering to the floor. A chest meets his back. Tears slam against his shirt.

"Your Highness. You are damaging your room."

Alois' eyes, swollen blue, drift over his art. Jim stares back at him. A heaviness sets in his throat, something he cannot swallow over.

"Claude." It is a choked sound. The boy turns, a thousand strings pulling his face in a thousand different ways. "They gave them the death penalty for failing to complete their own suicides." Alois found his mouth twisting, the wrong strings pulling, and a loud burst of laughter hurled out of him in one loud bark. "They killed them for wanting to die! They killed them!" His fingers curled into Claude's waistcoat, nails scraping over the buttons, and then the strings go limp and Alois' face falls again. His forehead meets his butler's chest.

"Do you wish for me to paint the walls, Your Highness?"

Alois' arms tighten and lift and slam onto the demon's chest before he backs away, sliding his wrists under his eyes to push the tracks of his tears over his cheeks. "Who did you make a contract with, Claude?" He tries to dam the tears but they fall, sliding over his fingers, down his chin, slipping under the collar of his shirt. "Alois Trancy or ... or Jim?"

When Alois raises his eyes again, it is to blink directly into pits of dark yellow. The demon's hands raise slowly, as if to purposely show his intent, and then thumbs are resting below Alois' eyes and wiping unruly tears away, only for the tracks to fill once more. Claude's face is close, their noses but a few breaths apart, a whisper of touches. "I made a contract with your soul, Your Highness." His head tilts, shards of black hair weeping over the pale plane of the demon's face. "Whatever name you choose to go by is irrelevant. Alois or Jim, I desire you all the same."

Alois' lips part in a gasp swirling in his lungs. "To eat me."

Claude's lips twitch, one string pulling the corner upward. "To devour you whole."

**/**

Claude could feel it. Something was about to _snap_.

Everything in the mansion that could possibly have words scribbled on it is decorated in a series of _Jim_'s and _Luca_'s. The demon frowns up at a painting in one of the many corridors of the house, a very old and very expensive piece of art of a bridge of sorts. It was an original and now it is completely ruined, names cut into the paint. Claude orders the other servants to remove it.

The mansion smells like paint. He is constantly coming up from behind his young Master and catching him in the act, a mess of tears and mindless babbling under his breath. It is no surprise to Claude that Alois has completely lost his mind. He knew that before the contract was even made, could sense it in the way the boy's soul was so heavily damaged. There was no way it would _not _have an effect on his mental state.

That is what makes it so tantalizing. That is why Claude is still here. Insanity is like a kind of sauce to soak the soul in; it makes it spicy and rich - mouthwatering.

The demon is not exactly known for keeping his side of contracts. As far as butlers go, he is unreliable. Of course, Alois was probably the last to know this, as he had never disobeyed an order yet, but Claude had, in the past, broken contracts, not obeyed the rules, done things that went against his Masters' wishes. It depended on the quality of the contractor. Some were very bold and strong, with the seal in their eyes - others were weak and scared, the seals on their hands or on their backs where true dominance could not be reached effectively. Alois was certainly different, because although he had lost his marbles completely, he still had a streak of power in him.

All in all, Alois Trancy - or Jim McCain - is by no means the worst Master Claude has ever had, and this is partly why he continues to obey his every need, however infuriating it may be. The longer Claude sticks around, the more delicious the boy's soul becomes. As soon as the contract is fulfilled, he plans to eat it with an enormous smile on his face.

And so he waits. Waits for the strings to snap - for the boy's soul to boil and burn.

**/**

Alois cannot help but think that this is not a very poise way to go.

The rope around his neck itches, but it is thick and strong and he knows it will hold him. The blonde hums as he ties it to the beam in his closet. The rope is about three feet long - just long enough to dangle him mere inches from the ground. Somehow that gives him a sick kind of pleasure, knowing that once he drops, the only thing that could save him would be someone walking. But that is why the door is locked.

Alois laughs. He laughs and giggles and has to stop what he is doing for a few minutes simply so he can double over, hold his gut, and laugh. It is endlessly amusing, imagining the look on his butler's face when he finds his Master swinging in the closet, his soul already dispersed to whatever hell awaits him.

Because even Alois knows that he is too full of sin to ever go into a land of peace and nirvana. He is crazy, but he is not stupid.

Claude was in town. His servants were downstairs. The chair under his feet feels solid and there, and Alois trails his fingers over the back of it with a fond smile on his face. This is the last thing holding him up, the last step.

Alois runs his tongue over his lips. He can feel the seal there, the ridges of the star like braille over his skin. His fingers pick at the rope. He wonders what he will look like dead, if his eyes will bulge and his neck will swell and if there will be a distinct odor about it - he laughs again. It is just hilarious, he thinks, his eyes closing. Luca's smiling face burns in front of his eyes and he laughs, his arms spreading like Christ on the cross. Luca's face shifts and morphs, strings pulling and tugging and wrapping and knotting and it is Claude's face, cold and blank.

"Jim," Alois says, and he steps off the chair.

Something hard and heavy slams into his chest, the breath left in his lungs crushed out of him. His eyes cannot open fast enough. The rope tugs at the back of his head and he hears it tear and rip, feels a hand around his waist and another behind his head. He is cradled to a black chest and the chair hits the wall of the closet with a small smack.

Claude smells like his kitchen, like lobster and butter.

"Your Highness."

The words vibrate against Alois' ear. He closes his eyes, hands digging into the demon's shoulders.

"You are not allowed to die just yet. The contract still stands."

The blonde lifts his head, two heavy rivers coursing out of his eyes. Claude's face is unmoving, unfeeling, a statue with breath. His hands shift, crawling to hold the spider demon's cheeks. "They gave them the death penalty," he whispers, the dark closet seeming to simmer with their words. "For wanting to _die_."

"I assure you that your death will come very soon, Your Highness, and I will be by your side until that day comes."

Fists slam against the butler's face, but not a trace of pain or irritation filters through it. "Doesn't this break the contract? I want the death penalty! Punish me!"

A string tugs. Something akin to amusement passes over Claude's golden eyes. "Your soul is not ready yet."

Alois does not know what that means. He simply gazes up at his butler, his demon, until Claude sets him to his feet. He is escorted back to his bed, where Claude peels away his stiff day clothes and puts him into a white gown. Alois is silent, his face empty as the covers are pulled over his form. Claude draws the curtains, the room swallowed in black.

As the demon moves toward the bedroom door, a soft sound comes from the sheets. He pauses, turning over his shoulder.

Alois is up on his elbows. "My name is Jim."

Claude bows, a hand over his chest. "Of course, Your Highness."

**/**

Claude devours the soul of Jim McCain on a warm Saturday night. The boy's mouth trembles in silent screams under the demon's, his body convulsing and thrashing uselessly in the grass.

The demon shows no mercy. He never has, and the pain makes the already soiled soul rich and filling. The strings that held the pulsing, black soul in place snap with a brilliant sound.

He decides, as he walks away, leaving the corpse behind him, that it was the most delicious meal he has ever had, and it was well worth the wait.


End file.
